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54 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

 

historically, the MDR experience is what helped to make ocean liner and cruise ship travel significantly different from other types of vacations.  

I feel like the MDR experience is stuck in a time bubble. Yep, there’s stuff that we don’t get in our everyday lives. Escargot. Beef Wellington. Baked Alaska! Singing waiters. The parade of chefs. Napkin twirling. Everybody should experience that. Once. 
 

I get the cruise ship dilemma. People expect this stuff. Take it away and they will *****. But little by little that experience is going away and even more cruisers want a more modern experience. And that includes not dining with strangers. 

While there are some other choices that you found, MSC offerings in the Caribbean are still a bit weak. Hopefully that will change soon. 

52 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

Those cave men and women were probably bemoaning the passing of the "good old days

These crazy kids today with their “fire.” Sheesh. 

Pretty sure flower night and 70’s night are the same thing. Can’t say specifically for the Seashore, but white night and flower night are standard for MSC. Expect galant night in the MDR. Think sparkly. You will never see a more sparkly ship or more sparkly dresses than on MSC.
 

I can honestly say I’ve never had more fun on a ship than on 70’s/flower night. One thing I learned - “Gloria” is actually an Italian song. Laura Brannigan’s version is a cover. 

I don’t pay a lot of attention to cabin. If you put me in one and asked if I was on MSC or RCL, the only way I could tell is by color: MSC uses a lot of red, RCL a lot of teal. 
 

Cabin attendants on MSC do their jobs and are friendly in terms of saying hello, waving in the hallway, etc. But on my last cruise, I never learned my steward’s names (I’m sure he told me on day one.) 

On RCL I’ve had cabin stewards that I know not only their names, but their kids names. I’ve had RCL stewards give my mom a big hug and console her when she had a bad day. And I’ve had RCL stewards constantly remind me of how great a job they were doing taking care of me (ie an extra tip and special mention on the survey sure would be nice.)

You can’t pick a cruise to ensure the seas are calmer. When it comes to the ocean, you get what you get. Should be reasonably calm, but as a general rule on a 3/4 day cruise expect at least one period of bumpiness. Good news is there are several drugs that virtually eliminate seasickness. Fear if seasickness is not a reason to avoid cruising. 
 

Tons of 3/4 day cruises out of Florida. Most leave out of Port Canaveral, Miami or Ft Lauderdale with 1-2 stops in the Bahamas. The actual cities in the Bahamas aren’t great cruise days so people generally prefer stops at the private island. There are also 4-day cruises, generally out of Tampa but also Miami that visits one of the disneyesc ports in Mexico. 
 

Go for it. Have a great time. 

There are apps for your phone that can help with all the calculations. Of course your phone also has GPS which is 10x more accurate than the best celestial navigation, but where’s the fun in that?

1 hour ago, DirtyDawg said:

🤫 Did I tell you what a lousy golfer I am?  😉

I (and my soon to be empty wallet) have heard that before. 

Because some ships are sailing well under capacity, there are a lot of “bargains” out there for the solo cruiser. There are also some cruises where the base inside cabin fare is so cheap paying 1.7x still works out to be a bargain.  
 

Not seeing as many bargains for 2023 as 2022 unfortunately. 

MSC’s official rule is you aren’t allowed to bring any beverages on board. No water, soda, beer, absinthe, nothing. There’s probably an exception for baby formula.
 

6 minutes ago, DirtyDawg said:

On land if I can't get together with my golfing buddies for a game I will go out as a single and join up with strangers for a round.

Quick tip, if you get paired up with a stranger who makes a bunch of mistakes the first few holes, then starts talking about “making things interesting,” be very very careful. 🙂

Meclizine works great for me, but as you can see different people react differently. Have your friend try things in advance. You could have fun driving them around like a madman trying to get them sick. 
 

If you decide to go with either Meclizine or patches, both can usually be bought a lot cheaper from Amazon than your local pharmacy. 

I’m not smart enough to know how to do it, but I suspect there’s a way for your nook to piggyback off your laptop’s access. 

The lines are pretty darn similar. MSC has even “stolen” some of the best ship design elements from RCL. 

First thing, apply for status match

Go into the production shows with lowered expectations. You may love the shows. You may not. Better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed. 
 

Have high expectations of anything put on by the entertainment team. Lots of dance parties. Everyone is welcome. Go and have fun.
 

It’s an Italian cruise line. Expect a bit of chaos. 

One nice thing about MSC is that there are few things you absolutely must sign up for right away. The restaurants will be there when you want. No North Star to get booked up. 
 

Change is good. New options are good. 

I think the portion of people who fully read and understand their cruise contract rounds to zero. For their insurance it’s even lower. (Yes, I know some of you are among the few that got rounded down. Give yourselves gold stars.)

Buy from reputable companies. Have low legal expectations. Hope you will be treated right anyway. Have a great cruise. 

Modern iPhones are reasonably water resistant. Not that you really want to test it. If the safe thing doesn’t work, I’d get a waterproof lanyard and bring the phone with you to the pool/tub. 

I always assume I’m just SOL in that scenario. But I’m not booking $20k cruises. 

4 hours ago, lissie said:

. I may have watched too much Border Force NZ /Australia! 

The all-knowing YouTube algorithm decided I wanted to watch these and I binged watched every Canadian episode. Didn’t like the UK version; I should check out the Australian. 
 

Note: while meat and poultry are strictly prohibited from being brought into Canada, you can bring in up to 4kg of fish. Or one fish if larger.  Gotta love the people who write such laws. 

Random story: Bagnoregio (from the port of Civitavecchia) is a poor choice to tour independently. It’s far from the port, there are no good ways to get there or back via public transportation if something goes wrong, the next port (if not Naples) can be a pain to reach, etc. I’ve often thought about going, but I’m just not a ship tour kind of guy.

Well during the heart of Covid, ports were cruise ship tour only. I figured this was my best chance to go. Had a good time.  

5 hours ago, Top_of_the_Cube said:

Speaking only of my personal experience with excursions in the Caribbean.  The further that you travel from the port (I am generalizing), the less time you might have with the actual excursion part of your trip with a private tour.  That is because (again, my experience) the private tour will tend to try to get you back to the ship early enough to account for unforeseen delays.  I think they do this with all their tours, but it becomes more noticeable with longer travel times.

 

Ship-sponsored excursions have less to lose by pushing the return time.  But, I bet there is some clause in the contract with the ship line about delaying the ship's departure.

One the one hand this is true. On the other hand, a *good* private tour has much less down time than ship tours. 

Loving this thread. Keep it coming. 

1 hour ago, navybankerteacher said:

The rule is:  you get what you get.

And you don’t pitch a fit. 

Sounds cool. Hope you let us know how it went. 

Side note: Good idea to travel with a written list of any drugs you take, allergies, significant Mexican* conditions, etc. Very easy to fill this out in your iPhone in the basic health app (I assume Android has something similar.) 
 

* er, make that significant medical conditions. Though if you have significant Mexican conditions I guess you can list those as well. Loves tacos. Do not serve rice and beans if sharing a room with others, etc.